http://hdl.handle.net/1893/31 Electronic theses of Psychology students. 2017-07-09T17:59:58Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/25452 Title: Paws for Progress: The development and evaluation of the first prison based dog training programme in the UK. Authors: Leonardi, Rebecca Jean Abstract: The most common type of human animal interaction (HAI) programme used in prisons involves prisoners caring for and training unwanted dogs from rescue shelters, to prepare the dogs for rehoming. Such programmes have been previously developed specifically aimed towards male young offenders, and are claimed to improve emotional, social and practical outcomes. Paws for Progress, the first prison based dog training programme in the UK, was introduced to HM YOI Polmont in 2011. By clearly communicating each step of the 5 Step approach (1. Identify the problem; 2. Review the evidence; 3. Develop a logic model; 4. Identify indicators and monitor the logic model; 5. Evaluate the logic model), it has enhanced our understanding of the development processes required for effective prison based dog training programmes. This evaluation provides the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of short, medium and long term outcomes for Scottish young offenders serving custodial sentences (N = 70) following participation. The aims of Paws for Progress are to improve behaviour, increase engagement in education, develop employability skills, and enhance well-being. Using a mixed design with two control groups and triangulating quantitative and qualitative outcomes, the evaluation assesses the efficacy of the programme in meeting these aims. Systematic analyses of semi-structured interviews pre and post participation in the programme support findings from the quantitative analyses. Analyses of institutional behaviour, measured by Disciplinary Reports, educational progress measured by written assessments and qualifications, employability skills measured by psychometric tests, and prisoner well-being all improved for participants, but such improvements were not shown by control groups. Paws for Progress positively impacts short and medium term outcomes and data on longer term outcomes also indicate the benefits are far reaching. By clearly relating programme aims to the outcomes achieved, and considering the contribution of Paws for Progress to future desistance from crime, the value and relevance of these findings are evident. The evaluation contributes to our understanding of effective methodologies in this applied context, which can be utilised to improve research practice in interventions in criminal justice and in human animal interaction. 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/25203 Title: The Genetics of Affective Cognition: Electrophysiological Evidence for Individual Differences in Affective Picture Processing, Attention and Memory Authors: Simpson, Johanna Abstract: Affect and cognition have traditionally been considered mutually exclusive domains and their study has evolved into two separate research fields. In recent years, however, there is increasing evidence of affective modulations of cognitive processes and interest in the study of affective cognition has grown. This thesis presents analyses of data collected in four mixed-design experiments between 2009 and 2011, which were designed to investigate affective memory and its electrophysiological correlates, individual differences in said affective memory and electrophysiological correlates, the time-course of affective memory and attentional disengagement from affective stimuli respectively. The first aim of the research presented here was to further understanding of how affective content influences picture processing and memory. Event-related potentials (ERPs) provide a valuable tool for the investigation of modulations of cognitive processes, as their excellent temporal resolution allows for the dissociation between different processes contributing to behavioural outcomes. Several important results for the study of affective cognition are reported: The late positive potential (LPP) was shown to be modulated differentially by affective content when compared to a behavioural attentional disengagement task. While the behavioural measure of attention replicated findings from participants’ self-report of arousal, LPP enhancement did not. This novel finding demonstrates that the affective modulation of the LPP cannot be used as an electrophysiological marker of slowed attentional disengagement as is common in the literature. In the domain of recognition memory, affective modulation of performance was shown to be time-sensitive, with effects developing faster for negative than for positive picture content. Affective pictures were associated with a less conservative response bias than neutral pictures but only negative pictures elicited better discrimination performance, driven by an increased in the rate of “remembered” as compared to merely familiar pictures. This was reflected in an increase of the ERP old/new effect for negative pictures in the 500 to 800ms time window, the purported correlate of recollection. The late right-frontal old/new effect between 800 and 1500 ms post stimulus onset was shown to be attenuated by affective content, supporting the interpretation of the late right-frontal effect as a correlate of relevance detection over a retrieval success interpretation. In combination, the findings add weight to the conclusion that affective content enhances memory through selective memory sparing for affective stimuli. Novel evidence for gender differences in affective cognition was found. Comparisons between female and male participants revealed that the affective modulation of the late right-frontal effect differs between the genders, underlining the importance of assessing and understanding gender differences as part of the study of affective cognition. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) gene val66met single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), a small genetic change that affects the functioning of BDNF, a protein that plays an important role in neuron growth, differentiation and survival, is shown here to also affect the interaction of affect and cognition. BDNF val66met genotype modulated the early “familiarity” old/new effect selectively in response to positive pictures. The present study clearly demonstrates the value of the ERP technique in the investigation of individual differences in affective and cognitive processing and the need to take such individual differences into account as part of the endeavour to fully understand the mechanisms of affective processing, cognition and affective cognition. A better understanding of the role of gender and genetic differences in the affective modulation of affective processing and memory will have important practical implications in fields where affect and cognition interact. 2016-03-31T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/24826 Title: The representation of meaning in episodic memory Authors: McIvor, Gillian C. Abstract: In several models of long-term memory it is assumed, either explicitly or implicitly, that different meanings of homonyms and even different senses of nonhomonyms have separate representations in long-term memory. While evidence has accrued, particularly from studies employing lexical decision tasks, to suggest that homonyms are multiply represented in semantic memory, claims for multiple representation of homonyms in episodic memory have tended to be made on a purely post hoc basis. The aim of the present research was to determine the manner in which homonyms are represented in episodic memory. A series of experiments were conducted in which either one or two meanings of homonyms were encoded at input. Retention of the homonyms or their biasing nouns was tested in a variety of retrieval contexts. The results obtained were consistent with a conceptualisation of episodic memory in which successive encodings of the same item are represented within the same memory trace which was established on the first occurrence of the item. When to different meanings of a homonym are encoded at input the encoded meanings will be represented within a single memory trace, with each different meaning being represented by an independent set of encoded semantic features. The generality of the framework for episodic memory which is developed is demonstrated through its interpretive application to a wide range of episodic memory phenomena. 1982-01-01T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1893/24706 Title: Linear and nonlinear cue to utilization in the identification of individual members of two bivariate normal populations Authors: Dracup, Christopher Abstract: An attempt was made to investigate the decision processes of subjects in a bivariate decision making task, similar to that facing a medical specialist who is required to classify a patient as belonging to one of a number of possible disease populations on the basis of the patient's scores of two predictor cues. It was felt that such tasks had been largely neglected in experimental psychology, where the tendency has been towards requiring subjects to learn relationships between continuous predictor variables and a continuous criterion, rather than between continuous predictor variables and a categorical criterion. When the relationship between the predictor variables is the same in both the populations to be discriminated, the best decision function is based on a linear combination of the cues (Fisher’s Linear Discriminant Function). It was found that the decisions of those subjects who learned to use the cues in a way which was at all valid in such situations, could be well approximated by a model which weighted the two cues equally in a linear combination and based it’s decisions on the result. When the relationship between the predictor variables differs from one population to the other, however, the best decision function becomes more complex, including terms in the squares and cross-products of the cues. It was felt that such situations are particularly relevant to medical decision making where clinicians have frequently claimed that the "pattern" of scores of a patient is important, not Just the individual scores on each cue. It was found that if differences in cue intercorrelation were large, then subjects seemed to inolude in their iii decision processes, some nonlinear term to take account of this fact. If, however, differences in cue intercorrelation were only moderate, or if the correlations involved were large hut negative, this seemed to go unnoticed by the subjects and did not lead to any reliance on nonlinear terms. The results show that previous findings in "real life" tasks, that decision making processes could be adequately represented as linear combinations of cues, may be due more to the linear nature of the tasks than to any predisposition towards linear processes on the part of human decision makers, and that the statistical properties of "real life" tasks must be more thoroughly investigated before it is assumed that they require nonlinear decision processes. 1976-01-01T00:00:00Z